Evolution of tools

[trehinp]

I just received the latest issue of Current Anthropology electronic version, I was attracted by the article of Sophie De Beaune  on stone industry innovation :

Sophie A. de Beaune “The Invention of Technology, Prehistory and Cognition”, Current Anthropology Volume 45, Number 2, April 2004

Pr De Beaune article provides a different look at stones tools than the usual knapped stones industry, analysing, in an evolutionary context, unknapped stone tools : grinding surfaces and  pestles. She proposes, on the basis of the analysis of these tools wear, an general mechanism of technical innovation and a more general view of technology evolution.

“Comparing these results with those of cognitive psychology on problem solving, it seems  possible to propose several hypotheses about the cognitive content of major technical innovations by Homo sapiens sapiens and their less sapient predecessors. If these hypotheses
are confirmed, then the cognitive processes that trigger invention must have appeared as early as the Lower Paleolithic”.

The article is followed by a discussion including Iain Davidson, Bruce HardyWilliam Mc Grew and Linda Marchant, Simon Reader, Dietrish Stout, and finally Jacques Vauclair. Sophie de Beaune replies quite eloquently to these comments.

In the end she poses the question of invention and transmission of invention. Perhaps a question that might interest Richard Dawkins memetic theory.

Paul Trehin